Secrets in the dark
by Sagakure
Summary: One-shot. Zero views Kaname as the very embodiment of everything vampire and as such everything he hates, but something unexpected happens and forces him to face his hatred of Kaname at last. Can be seen as yaoi or not depending how you look at it.


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**Secrets In The Dark**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Vampire Knight, this is a fanfic written for fun and for love of the series. I'm not making any money with it.

**Warnings:** Nothing really, just vampire blood drinking mentions etc. Oh, and, NOT an OC. ;D

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_"Don't ever forget who it was that gave you this blood, Kiryuu. You owe your life and my aid to Yuuki, and you __**will **__protect her."_

And as long as he did, Kaname Kuran would give him blood. The pure vampire blood that Zero Kiryuu hated more than anything, but that was the one and only thing keeping him away from the inevitable descent to level E, and filling his body with a newfound power that he couldn't possibly imagine before.

He'd been drinking Kaname's blood on a regular basis for a few weeks now. It had been more than awkward, especially at first, but however unpleasant the situation may be, it was considerably better than the guilt he felt each time his fangs pierced Yuuki's skin.

Grudgingly, the hunter had accepted the pureblood's logic that this way Yuuki would be safer, not only because Zero would be able to protect her much better but also because she wouldn't be endangered by his growing hunger anymore.

Zero had been vague about what happened and why he didn't need her blood anymore. Yuuki had naturally been worried, but she saw him thriving, stronger and healthier with each passing day, and by keeping an eye on him she noticed that late on some nights he'd disappear in the direction of the Moon dorms.

It still worried her sick from time to time, but she suspected that Kaname had something to do with whatever stopped Zero's hunger, and her implicit trust in the two as well as Zero's visible good health decided her to watch from afar without interfering, and just wait until one of them told her what was going on.

Zero knew it was the best solution, and yet a part of him couldn't help but resent the pureblood, for always taking the decisions into his own hands and controlling everything. And perhaps, particularly for forcing him to face so obviously the fact that he too was a vampire, regardless of him hating it and never having wanted to be one.

Unfair as it may be, a part of Zero couldn't help but scream at him for revenge, against the whole situation and against all that the pureblood embodied at his eyes, that voice in his mind louder and easier to give ears to when his more bestial side took over in the bloodlust.

It was that part of him that told him to bite Kaname's neck harder each time, a thrill of excitement running up his spine when he felt the pureblood momentarily wince in surprise and stifle a sound. Oh but the proud Kaname Kuran wouldn't show weakness, ever, even half-naked in the ground of his bathroom, an ex-human vampire pinning him against the wall and having his way with his neck and the powerful nectar that any other vampire would kill to taste a drop of.

Unable to hold back that sadistic desire in his vampire instincts, Zero more and more often felt tempted to suck harder on the pale skin bruising under his lips, and to drink more and more each time, perhaps daring himself to see how far he could push the pureblood before something happened. Perhaps even to see if he'd finally snap and give Zero the death the ex-human had been desiring deep inside for so long.

But Kaname remained stoic through each of Zero's attempts, as if he was above even dignifying him with a response, and the more unfazed he appeared, the more Zero couldn't help but feel infuriated, something twisting in his mind and whispering to him that the pureblood was mocking him.

That particular night, it was making him drink a much larger amount than normally, well decided to only stop when the pureblood finally acknowledged him and stopped him.

At his eyes, forcing Kaname to react would be as if he was making the pureblood admit defeat, in a way resulting in a small victory for Zero's much tried pride, however much he would have loathed to admit it.

Suddenly, the noise of the blood being being drained from Kaname's veins became the only thing Zero could perceive before his consciousness disappeared altogether.

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He woke up feeling like he'd slept for hours, if not days, and completely unable to tell where he was or what he'd been doing before he lost conscience.

_Oh great, what did that bloodsucker do to me and where the hell am I?!_

He tried to regain his bearings, hunter instincts mixing with vampire ones to impress on him the utmost need to remain calm and not let the rising panic have a hold of him just because he might be at the mercy of an angry pureblood in a pitch black hole that looked nothing like anything he remembered having ever seen before.

His vampire eyes could normally see in the dark as well as a human could see in broad daylight, but for some bizarre reason it took him a while to get used to the darkness of the place, and even when he did, he still couldn't see as far as he should be able to, perhaps because of the sheer lack of light in this place. Even nocturnal creatures had some trouble when there was no external source of light.

He tried to assess his surroundings as well as he could, taking in the moisture in the air, the uneven stone ground beneath his feet and the insidious wind that slipped in all around him from unidentified sources.

He was now more clear minded and could register with puzzlement that the wind was constant enough to bring an unpleasant chill, yet it did nothing to dispel the oppressive weight in the air. He wondered how it was possible, and if he was in some strangely built underground prison or vampire dungeon.

That's when he finally registered a background noise that he had until then mistaken for a sound made by the wind. He now realized that it was more like a faint sniffling and sobbing, echoing on the walls of the place very quietly but clearly audible once he had dissociated it from the wind.

Unable to spot the source of the crying, Kiryuu decided to investigate further. But his first step forward made a rasping noise as the sole of his shoe caught on the stone ground, and somewhere in the dark, the voice that had previously been crying suddenly caught in its owner's throat as he or she was startled by the unexpected sound.

The little gasp was enough for Zero to pinpoint exactly where the other person was, and he moved towards that spot in a quick stride.

To his surprise, the sobbing grew louder and louder all of a sudden, a rush of terror sweeping through the voice while its owner apparently tried to scramble away from the approaching footsteps.

Zero tried to comfort the person by speaking softly of wanting to help them, but his words of reassurance were unheeded. He searched the surroundings with his hands as he grew closer and closer to the sound, found a wall at his right hand and followed it to a corner, then down to the ground, where he finally got to see the other person.

In a striking contrast with the darkness that clung to the entirety of the place and that Zero's vampire sight still could not pierce even now, this corner alone was suddenly much more clear, although still dimly lit by a diffuse light that seemed to come from an undetermined location above.

The source of the sobbing, a child who looked about five, was huddled on the ground half sitting and half kneeling, his back pressed hard against the wall in an attempt to get farther away. His little arms crossed in front of him, he hid his face behind his hands as his whole body was racked by terrified sobs.

Zero didn't immediately realize that it was his presence that was causing the child to cry harder, or that he was desperately trying to escape him. It was only when the boy started begging that he understood.

"Please... don't hurt me... I'll be good, I promise... I promise... Please don't hurt me anymore..." His voice broke down hoarsely as he choked on his sobs and became unable to go on speaking.

Zero may be a vampire now, but the humanity in him was as present as ever, and he had suffered a great deal in life himself. The sheer misery in that little voice sent a pang of pain straight through his heart.

The very thing that made Zero hate his present condition so much was the fact that he was convinced that once you peeled away all their guise of sophistication and culture, deep inside vampires weren't anything better than mere bloodthirsty beasts. He clung to his humanity with all his will on a daily basis, and sought more or less consciously to focus on any ideals mankind could have that would set him apart from the vampires, that would make him better than a beast.

Long before that even, he had always been a natural caregiver. It was deeply ingrained in his nature, and no physical change could ever modify that. It was a trait so strong in his psyche that it managed to make him do on a regular basis things he would otherwise never voluntarily do, such as allow a vampire under his roof, like he'd done when a distraught Aidou had imposed himself on Yuuki and him, going as far as making him cook for him.

Ironically, it was that extreme humanity the very thing that made him even more disgusted of everything vampire in him, and that caused him to lash out at Kaname with such violence.

Kaname, who embodied the very essence of the vampires, and of everything he hated. Kaname, whose blood, as deliriously intoxicating of a poison as it may be, was the most purely 'vampire' thing he'd ever encountered, and yet, who forced him to face the fact that perhaps it was he, Zero, who was the most vampire of them all.

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Kneeling in front of the little boy, Zero tried to reassure him and see if he was wounded. He had to hold back a gasp of horror when he got a better look at him and saw that his little white shirt was partially torn around the chest and collar, missing buttons and frayed fabric intermixing here and there with bloodstains and smudges spawning from the neck area. Zero couldn't see that part well because the boy was too scared to uncover his face yet.

He noted however that the little arms and legs -sticking out of an equally smudged pair of dark little shorts- where covered in a web of bruises, cuts and welts in different stages of healing, indicating long run abuse.

An attempt to touch the boy's arm was met with cries of terror and renewed pleads and promises of being good, regardless of Zero's repeated assurances of having no intention to hurt the child.

It was breaking Zero's heart to hear the sheer misery in the child's voice, and a wave of fury swept through his body at the idea of whoever caused that little boy such distress.

The boy somehow seemed to feel the anger emanating from Zero, and tried to get even farther away if such a thing was possible, his little back pressing harder against the stone wall as if it could make him disappear. If it was possible for the wall to open up and swallow him, the boy clearly would have welcomed it. As it was impossible, he resorted to becoming suddenly very silent despite the sobs that still shook his little body.

Zero caught the reaction faster this time around, and mentally kicked himself for causing the very opposite impression than he meant. It was clear that the boy was expecting a beating and was trying to appear smaller and smaller, curling up against the wall as if in an attempt to appease his tormentor.

Despite the dim light, when the boy moved Zero spotted in a fraction of a moment what he was afraid to see but knew better than not expect to find: the telltale wounds from a vampire's bite. From what little he could see, the child's neck was a mess of dry blood and puncture marks, some more or less closed, others still partially open and bleeding sluggishly, perhaps having reopened because of the boy's recent frantic movements. Zero's eyes narrowed in anger.

While he felt genuinely mortified for having accidentally made the boy think he was angry at him, this was now in a way working in his favor, because instead of panicking and trying to escape, the boy was eerily still and as silent as he could manage, making it a much easier task to assess the state of his wounds.

The hunter was having trouble containing in himself the seething hatred he felt towards the vampire or vampires who had attacked this child, but he did his best to hide it in order to avoid scaring him even more.

"You don't have to believe me if you don't want to, but you did said you'd be good, so keep your promise and let me see those wounds."

Much as he knew it was necessary, Zero hated to have to use the promise the boy meant for his tormentors, especially to make him accept to do something he clearly didn't want to.

When the little boy, shaking miserably even more than before, finally lowered his arms, Zero's mouth actually gaped in surprise.

Beyond the mess of bite marks, cuts and scrapes, and despite the bruises the boy sported on his face too, there was a look about him that was so familiar that it hurt. Even though Zero had only met Yuuki much later, he had seen pictures of her at the age she was when she had just arrived at the chairman's house, and there was a definite resemblance there that went beyond the boy's dark brown hair and reddish eyes, although it was hard to pinpoint what it was exactly. Zero wondered if his mind was playing tricks on him, but he couldn't shake off the clear impression he had.

But any similarities stopped there; while Yuuki had certainly been a very cute child, this boy possessed a beauty that was striking to the point that it could be easily qualified ethereal, as it was difficult to imagine that a human child could possibly be this beautiful.

It was probably the resemblance to Yuuki that prevented Zero from connecting the dots immediately.

The boy was holding the backs of his own arms looking nervous and unsure of what was expected of him now, and more and more uneasy under Zero's silent scrutiny.

It was only when the silence grew too heavy and the boy's fear of it became bigger than his fear of talking to Zero, that the hunter finally realized.

"...mister?" The boy asked shakily, his voice barely louder than a whisper, but through his parted lips the gleam of two little fangs was clearly visible.

The boy's unnatural beauty came from the fact that he too, was a vampire.

Forgetting the situation at hand completely, Zero was swallowed by a flurry of memories. His family, the blood everywhere, Ichiru's dangerous smile, and that monster Shizuka leaning over him and taking him with her into a darkness that he could never again escape, of which he could never clean himself enough. Soiled forever, tainted, branded as one of them, enslaved by them, turned by force, forever the slave of his vampire blood.

Another child, even younger than he was himself when it happened.

In a purely instinctive reaction, Zero seized the child suddenly and hugged him tightly to his chest, his consciousness barely still present enough to remind him not too squeeze too hard by fear of making the boy's injuries worse.

Past the first reaction of absolute panic when Zero grabbed onto him, the boy was extremely unsettled by the warmth of the hunter, and by the protective strength with which he held him, the contact feeling like something he'd long needed and been denied. Against his better judgement, he surrendered himself into the strong arms, letting free the pent up fear and despair that he'd contained in himself for too long. He buried his face in the crook of Zero's neck and cried at the top of his lungs, this time not apprehensive tears at the face of an imminent danger, but long accumulated tears for all the despair and pain that had built up in him, and that his constant lonely sobbing in the dark couldn't possibly wash away.

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He couldn't tell how long they stayed that way in that unlikely embrace, two complete strangers linked by an unexpected situation, lost in a dark prison at the hands of unknown captors. Unable to tell if minutes or hours had passed, Zero noticed all of a sudden that silent tears had been running down his own face as well.

The boy in his arms had calmed down somewhat, or at least had exhausted himself to a lethargic state of semi-sleep from all the crying, and leaned his head against the hunter's chest, breathing softly if unevenly.

Zero hesitated to ask him if he knew where they were, by fear of scaring him further by revealing that he didn't know. As the only adult present, he felt it was his responsibility to protect the boy now that he'd found him, and that included appearing reliable and reassuring.

He finally decided that he couldn't avoid the question, and patted the boy's back softly for a bit before asking.

The answer wasn't the most helpful.

"You mean you don't know...? We're locked in the blood." He pointed his little index finger at Zero's parted lips, touching them briefly then quickly pulling away, shy of actually touching the other's fangs.

Puzzled, Zero tried a different route:

"But you haven't always been that way... or been here. Where were you before? The v...the bad people who brought you here, do you know who they are?"

He stopped short of asking the boy about his family, but unexpectedly he seemed to read the question in Zero's eyes.

"They're dead...my parents... as for the people who hurt me, they come and go. There are new faces every so often, and old ones always come back sooner or later... But it's okay. I can take it. I _have _to."

His voice was a strange contrast with his words, determination shining through despite how broken his voice sounded as he said it. It almost sounded like a part of him was saying it to convince himself as well.

Zero was staring at him in absolute horror, trying to find the right thing to say. Unable to, he settled for pulling the boy closer and stroking his hair gently. The boy was still sitting in Zero's lap since the hunter had pulled him into the hug, and sighed softly while laying his head on Zero's chest, allowing himself to bask in that comforting presence that felt strangely familiar yet most unexpected.

A doubt that wouldn't leave Zero's mind finally made him ask: "Do you know the name of the pureblood... of the monster who turned you?"

A part of him didn't want to ask, was too afraid of the answer. But the dreadful possibility in the back of his mind was also precisely why he _needed _to know. And when Shizuka had turned him, she had told him her full name, so it might be the case for this boy as well, especially if that was a custom of some sort among those monsters.

To his surprise, the child merely looked at him with a vaguely shocked expression, sitting back a little and steadying himself with his little hands on Zero's shoulders. Something told him that he should not be in the hunter's arms in the first place, that he should back away and retreat to safety now. But right now he craved the contact so badly that he couldn't possibly bring himself to let go.

But he knew the weight his words held to his interlocutor, and would not meet the hunters eyes as he spoke.

"No one turned me. I was born a pureblood."

Zero felt as if his chest was being squeezed in a vice. His hands went automatically to the boy's arms, his instincts screaming at him to fling the pureblood monstrosity away from him immediately. He was disgusted at himself for not noticing before. As a vampire hunter, and even more now as a vampire, he should have been able to instantly realize that the child was not only a vampire, but a pureblood. He couldn't understand why his senses kept failing him in this wretched place.

Now that he knew, he could definitely pick up that scent faintly, despite how his dulled perceptions could currently barely grasp it. It was that scent, that they all gave off, that had long etched itself forever in Zero's memory when Shizuka soiled him. That scent that made him try and stab at Kaname the very first time he met him.

It was the scent of the pure vampire blood, so concentrate and powerful in purebloods that the smell seemed to waft straight through their very pores, ever present, both a terrible temptation and a constant reminder for the lower ranks that they were their masters, to be forever revered, desired and feared.

Except no one seemed to fear the wounded child in Zero's arms, and the humanity in the hunter was both what made him wish to shove the vampire child away in horror and ironically also what ultimately made him refuse to do so.

He only noticed too late that he had been gripping the little bruised arms in a steel hold, and the tiny whimper that the boy tried to swallow as he winced made a wave of horrified guilt wash over Zero.

He pulled him back closer to his chest, being careful not to hurt him again, and felt a pang of additional guilt when the boy seemed wary and taken aback by his gentleness.

The child had been expecting to be rejected after his answer.

Somehow, this child could predict Zero's reactions in an uncanny manner. Zero suspected that it was the boy's pureblood abilities that made him able to be one step ahead of him as if he could sense all that Zero was thinking, but surprisingly for once such a thought didn't repulse him, it simply came as a logical conclusion.

Ordinarily, whenever Kaname did the slightest thing, it inevitably angered Zero as if the pureblood's merely breathing was a source of annoyance for him, and yet with this child he could simply ignore it. He wondered how it was possible, and his mind erratically made a parallel between the moment he'd accidentally made the boy wince by holding his arms too tightly and the moments when he would purposefully hurt Kaname in an attempt to cause the same sort of reaction.

Why was it that when this boy winced, Zero felt guilt, but when Kaname did so he found a sadistic pleasure in eliciting that reaction from the pureblood?

Whatever his feelings for Kaname may be, Zero was a decent person, and he was loath to admit to himself that it was at the very least a tad unfair.

Was it because the boy was so hurt and helpless? Zero mused on the question while absentmindedly caressing the boy's hair again. His caring nature took over where his logic would be horrified to thread, and the boy was now pressing himself softly into the caress, apparently starved for affection.

The hunter reached the conclusion that at least to a certain point the difference laid in the fact that the child had visibly suffered so much, while he couldn't possibly imagine Kaname having ever been anything other than a control freak who had been pampered all his life. He knew that the Kuran family had perished at some point, but he had somehow assumed that regardless of that, Kaname was cold and uncaring, and had been quickly taken in by another influential vampire family anyway, under the guardianship of the old Ichijou from the vampire Elder's Council.

Images of Kaname that didn't match the description Zero was doing to himself flashed through his mind. Kaname protecting Yuuki, Kaname sitting by her bedside watching over her while she had the flu as a child, Kaname rushing to her side at the slightest sign of problems, Kaname offering her a hand when the Day Class girls had stampeded towards the Night Class and caused her to fall... a number of situations where the pureblood was anything but cold or uncaring. Moments that perhaps no one else saw the same way since Kaname only opened up to Yuuki, but because Zero spent so much time near her, he had inevitably witnessed at least a part of it.

The image that would not leave Zero's mind was one he'd normally rather not want to linger on. In it, Kaname was watching Yuuki, and there was a sadness in his eyes so tangible it was painful to look at.

Was he ever so blind to not have noticed this? Or was he so bent on hating Kaname and all that he represented, lumping all together between Shizuka, vampires and purebloods that he'd made himself ignore things for the sake of making hating Kaname more easy? The hunter felt a pang of guilt spreading inside him.

Yuuki and him had each other and the chairman for support, but had Kaname been suffering from the loss of his family all this time alone, locked under the guard of an old tyrant and unable to confide in anyone, his only loved one so far away from him that it was not a stretch to say they lived in completely different worlds? And he was the one who snatched that man's hand away when he did as little as stroke the hair of the girl he loved?

Had the pureblood perhaps suffered even more, unknown horrors that his rank made him unable to divulgate whether by shame or because of political pressure?

Zero hadn't delved into such thoughts often, but he had actually wondered about it on a few occasions, when Kaname joined the school or when Zero heard of the sudden break of contact between the young pureblood and his former guardian. And he remembered feeling his own hair stand up in the back of his neck at the mere sight of the old vampire. And that was despite being an adult seeing Ichiou for just a moment, while Kaname was but a child when he entered that household.

Much as he hated to remember anything from her, Zero did recall Shizuka saying that being born a pureblood was a curse. Forever revered, but also forever feared, forever alone. Forever desired, coveted, their every step watched closely, the most slight sign of weakness registered and likely to be used against them.

For every pair of adoring eyes, there were countless pairs of watchful eyes just waiting for them to lower their guard for a second.

Zero grit his teeth and wondered what other signs he'd possibly been missing in his attempts to blind himself in his hate for Kaname. Signs that he would have picked up on anyone else but that he disregarded automatically on Kaname.

He didn't know for sure why, but he stole a quick glance down at the child in his arms and immediately, soft garnet-tinted eyes peered up with a preoccupied look from between the dark brown hair that fell over his face.

The boy had Kaname's eyes.

Zero wondered if he was finally going insane.

But insanity was almost a desirable prospect compared to the idea that was now forming in Zero's mind. It was still much too early to go quite that far, as the hunter had just now started to accept the idea that he'd perhaps been unfair in his hatred for Kaname, but he was nevertheless walking the first steps in the path that would eventually lead him to maybe one day realizing that the reason why he needed to hate Kaname so badly wasn't so much because he feared the pureblood would take Yuuki away from him - he knew after all that it was Kaname that she loved anyway, and had no illusions on his own chances- but because he was afraid that if he stopped hating Kaname, whom he had turned in his mind into the very symbol of everything vampire... then he'd sooner or later have to come to terms with accepting himself, as a vampire, as well.

And that was an idea that Zero Kiryuu couldn't possibly accept. At least not at that point. Perhaps never as long as he lived, even.

But now that he had started to open his eyes, it would be very difficult to go back to being blind to the pain in Kaname's eyes like before. And deep inside, much as he abhorred everything vampire, Zero abhorred injustice as well, and was not the type of person to be able to purposefully ignore anyone's pain once it had became so clearly visible to him.

"Kiryuu..."

Zero snapped out of his reverie with a jolt. But instead of the voice he had expected, his name had been said in a shaken little voice, and was coming from the small form sitting on his lap.

The boy was holding his own arms again in a gesture of nervousness, a light blush perceivable on his cheeks despite the dim light. He seemed torn between his shyness and the need to tell the hunter something.

The entire adventure had been so far so surreal that Zero didn't even bother asking him how he knew his name and just looked at him waiting for the boy to overcome his hesitation and speak.

"You know, the people who hurt me are really mean... they're always looking for horrible ways to make me hurt more... But you... you're okay. You don't have to worry, I'll let you drink my blood whenever you need it. I won't get angry if you drink it. Because even though we're very different, we're both in it for the same reason."

Zero's eyes were wide in shock as he heard the boy.

"You... No, I won't drink your blood! I'm not like them! I'll protect you from them as much as I can, the next time they come here!"

The boy had a smile filled with both such sadness and such an unreal beauty that made Zero mesmerized.

"Thank you... but you can't protect me from them. You shouldn't even be inside this place the next time something happens to me anyway. And besides, I'm not the one you are supposed to protect. Don't forget that."

The boy's words were once again paradoxical, said with a voice half-broken from too many tears but that contained an unexpected determination and authority. Furthermore, the clear resemblance to the words Kaname had told him the first time Zero drank his blood sent a cold chill running up the hunter's spine.

He opened his mouth, very intent on asking the boy just how exactly he knew those things, but a raised little hand stopped him before he could say anything.

"You shouldn't be here to begin with. This place is where I am prisoner of my own blood and of those who desire it. You came here by accident because you drank much more pure blood than your body could assimilate at once. Be more careful next time. It would ruin everything if you were to be stuck in a place like this."

Zero could merely stare as the pureblood child made less and less sense. Or at least, he wanted to believe there was no meaning in the boy's words, but he had a new dreadful suspicion.

"It's time for you to leave, Kiryuu..."

Zero found himself laying down on his side as if his body had a will of his own.

He had experienced at the hands of Shizuka the famed control that purebloods could exert over vampires of lower station but this felt completely different.

While Shizuka's command had felt like a violation, forcing itself into his mind and body like a throbbing presence in his every vein, whatever the child was doing didn't feel unpleasant in the least, and he even guided Zero's descent with his little hands pushing down on the hunter's shoulders, as if it was necessary to do so to ensure that he reached the ground safely.

The child then laid down on the ground as well, with his face near Zero's, and put a little hand on the hunter's cheek, whispering something that Zero barely could hear through the haze that was taking over his mind and that made him unable to keep his eyes open.

"It's time for you to sleep now, and then you have to go. Thank you... for finally noticing that I was hurting so much."

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The next time Zero opened his eyes, he was in a completely different location. He felt once again sluggish as if he had slept for days, but at least this time he wasn't in some dark dungeon.

In fact, this awakening would have been remarkably less unsettling than the previous one, if not for the fact that as soon as Zero opened his eyes, he found himself staring at Kaname's face right in front of his, his eyes closed in apparent sleep.

The hunter backed away very fast, and felt suddenly dizzy from moving too suddenly. He took in the surroundings, the taste of blood on his lips, and the matching trails of dried blood down Kaname's neck and chest. It was morning, possibly even afternoon, and the sunlight danced merrily on the Carrara marble ground of the room, countless speckles of light swaying in a whimsy dance as the wind moved the leaves of the trees in front of the window. The light was both strangely peaceful and always a little painful to his vampire eyes, even though Zero was an ex-human.

He realized now that they were in the pureblood's bathroom, and that they had apparently both passed out, Kaname from losing too much blood, and him for not being able to absorb such a large amount of pure vampire blood in one hit.

_"You drank much more pure blood than your body could assimilate at once. Be more careful next time."_

The child's words started to make more sense, and as his gaze brushed over Kaname's neck, he noticed with shock that the wounds -now almost completely healed despite the healing rate being much slower than usually due to how little blood was left- matched with perfect exactitude the ones on the neck of the child he'd seen.

_"Thank you... for finally noticing that I was hurting so much."_

Zero was petrified to see his wildest suspicions come to life so vividly in front of him. Was it really Kaname he'd seen?! Had he been lost inside the deep recesses of the pureblood's mind, accidentally straying there somehow because of the sheer amount of Kaname's blood he had in him at the moment he passed out?!

He sat back and swallowed hard, trying to make sense of all that. A part of him hoped that whatever it was, the pureblood would wake up with no memories of Zero hugging or caressing him in that dream. The situation was terribly awkward enough as it was, no need to add an extra layer to it.

Zero watched Kaname's unconscious form for a while, torn between the memory of the sheer amount of pain he'd witnessed while in that place, and a pang of annoyance at the fact that even though he'd nearly bled him dry, the pureblood still had not stopped him, the previous night.

Sure, Kaname was hardly at risk of dying from mere blood loss as long as he didn't receive an external wound to any vital parts of his body, and even then he might only die if he was weakened enough by a vampire hunter's weapon or something similar, but the lack of blood must have at the very least caused him a considerable amount of pain and discomfort, especially if the extremely slow -for a pureblood, that is- rate of healing of his neck wounds and the tired lines on his face were any indication. Even now, Zero could tell that Kaname wasn't really sleeping per se, but that his body had actually shut down to regenerate the amount of blood necessary to function.

The hunter felt a twinge of anger at the pureblood's pride in not admitting defeat and not stopping him even as he pushed him that far, but it was quickly washed away by a rising wave of guilt, especially when he glanced at the wounds on Kaname's neck and remembered the little boy in the dream and in how much pain he was.

He might resume being angry at Kaname again later depending on the pureblood's reaction when he woke up, but for now at least, Zero made the firm decision to apologize to him when Kaname would regain consciousness.

And perhaps, just perhaps, he would try to treat him more decently from now on, instead of using him as a convenient scapegoat for everything he hated in the vampires.

With those thoughts in mind, Zero leaned back against the wall and watched over Kaname silently.

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Sagakure, June 07th 2008

This was my second or third VK fic, but I ended up taking a while in editing and leaving it aside, and so it only got posted now. :)

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I know he didn't say the part about Zero owing his life to Yuuki etc, in chapter 30, but the whole fact of Zero being alive to protect Yuuki translates well into that. :)

And I don't really picture Kaname's inner voice as a little child for real, but well, it was late at night, and the rabbid plot bunny wouldn't stop gnawing at me, and there you go. XD The image of tiny little Kaname was just irresistible.

The understanding of who that little kid was must have been quite disturbing for Zero after waking up though, especially with all the protective hugging and petting hair etc. he did. lol

Normally, canonically I think Kaname wouldn't even stay unconscious that long, and his neck wounds would have healed by then, less blood or not. But I needed it that way for the fic, sooo... XD;

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